Inslee to begin assembling transition team

Democrat Jay Inslee isn’t waiting for all the votes to be counted in the governor’s race: He’s starting to assemble a transition team for his administration.

In a news conference at his campaign headquarters in South Seattle, Inslee said he is “very confident that we will be in a position to lead the state of Washington for the next four years” and that he’d start putting together a transition team to be named after the votes are finalized.

“We feel it’s important to do that. We have some big challenges and great opportunities and we want to hit that ground running,” Inslee said.

Inslee said he’d be looking for people who will bring a “breath of fresh air” to state government, represent the entire state and focus on his priorities of job creation, health-care and education reform.

Inslee held a fairly commanding 50,000-vote lead over Republican Rob McKenna after Tuesday night’s vote count, buttressed by a big margin in King County.

McKenna would need a major turnaround in vote trends in the coming days to have any shot of winning the race. But the McKenna campaign was not giving up.

His campaign manager, Randy Pepple, sent a late-night email to supporters asking them to contribute $5 to keep up Republican efforts to ensure ballots are counted. “We knew this was going to be close and we knew this was not going to be easy. We have just a little more work until we win this,” Pepple wrote.

About this blog

Politics Northwest is the go-to blog for politics in our region. The blog explores national, state and local political news and issues. Reporters from Washington, D.C., to Seattle City Hall to the state capital in Olympia contribute. Editors are Richard Wagoner and Beth Kaiman.